


rumors

by not_your_tinkerbell



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 08:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13360644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_your_tinkerbell/pseuds/not_your_tinkerbell
Summary: Everybody seems to believe that they’re together, even he himself believes that they must be together, has he not been the one involved.Or, in which, everybody ships AkaKuro.





	rumors

 

 **8 o’clock** in the morning, the sunlight gently passes through the hotel room’s white sheer curtains, illuminating the room with its golden rays; bright, and warm.

The long night in September seems to have come to an end abruptly.

When the natural body clock urges him to wake up, Kuroko reluctantly pushes the blanket aside. He has a habit of covering his whole body with a blanket when he sleeps, and the moment he’s greeted by the shuttering of the light of the day, stabbing him right in the eyes, shaking him out of his trance, he somewhat feels a kind of irked.

When he looks up to the window, he notices that the ash gray curtains have already been drawn open, which is why there’s no shield to hide the room from the morning sun.

He forces himself to sit on the bed, grabbing a pillow and hugs it tightly. While twisting his aching neck, Kuroko wonders why he forgot to pull the curtains close last night.

After fully regaining back his consciousness, he faintly hears the sound of water coming from the bathroom. Confused, Kuroko tilts his head to the side, staring at the door to the bathroom blankly, before his gaze falls on the empty side beside him.

Obviously, there’s someone else in the room.

The bed sheets are no longer arranged neatly, and a man’s watch lying on the bedside table.

Kuroko’s heart suddenly trembles with a sense of perception. However, he can’t remember who was sleeping next to him last night.

Was it a well-acquainted classmate? Or, did he randomly check in to the hotel with someone he barely even knows?

He had too much alcohol pouring into his stomach last night; he was basically floating high in the clouds. How can he get himself to remember what’s happened last night that he woke up in a hotel room?

The last thing he remembers, is probably something about him going out for drinks with the other freshmen before waking up to such a confusing state.

His phone vibrates somewhere under the pillows. When Kuroko finds it, seeing the newest text come up on the screen, his brain seems to explode.

 **_「_ ** **_How was it, Tetsu? Last night… [bad smiles]_ ** **_」_ **

_How was it? Last night?! I can’t even remember how I ended up here!_

Annoyed, Kuroko throws his phone away and gets up. After getting on his feet, he finally comes to a realization that he’s, _unexpectedly,_ wearing a hotel bathrobe.

When did he change into it again?!

Upon encountering such an unfathomable mystery, Kuroko’s heart burns in anger. He takes quick steps towards the bathroom, and without even minding about the rustling sound coming from the inside, he hurriedly, _forcefully_ pulls the sliding glass door open.

Such an intrusion would’ve been very impolite, has he been in his right mind. However, Kuroko’s subconscious mind seems to tell him that whoever that man is, it would be nearly impossible to stay in the same hotel room without being familiar with each other. He just wants to nicely ask him what has happened last night, that it leads to Aomine’s weird text.

Once he sees the naked back of the man, Kuroko immediately feels regretted for having pulled open the door too excessively. He’s not _that_ familiar with that figure, but his bright, fiery red hair is more than enough to tell Kuroko who it is.

At the same time, the sound of the sliding glass door harshly hitting the doorframe explodes in his ears.

The man spits out the mouthwash, and slowly lifts his head. A pair of sharp, deep red eyes reflects on the foggy mirror.

Kuroko is fully aware that he’s in the wrong for disturbing him, so he opens his mouth to apologize, “You…”

However, the man has already turned around to face him, squinting his eyes a little. He wipes the corners of his mouth with the towel hanging loosely on his shoulder, “What are you doing?”

Kuroko’s body visibly stiffens at the hard stare aiming at himself, “I apologize, Akashi Seijuurou- _kun._ I didn’t know it’s you. I thought I was staying with my friend last night.”

“Do you mean the friends who threw you into my room last night?” Akashi walks towards the bedside table, picking up his watch and wears it. He turns back to face Kuroko again, revealing a mocking smile, and it’s when Kuroko discovers a small, fresh cut in the corner of Akashi’s mouth.

Akashi notices his gaze, raising his index finger to touch the wound, before he gives Kuroko a warning look, “Don’t look. You’re the one who caused it,”

“Me?!” Kuroko issues a sound of surprise, but Akashi’s cold eyes shut him up almost immediately. “…that’s… impossible.” 

 _“Impossible?_ I _kindly_ helped you change into the clean bathrobe, but you came up with a fist instead. I hadn’t even tried to get back at you, but you already launched attacks on me. Twice.” Akashi narrows his eyes at him, hinting at the sliding glass door which has just been pulled open rudely by Kuroko, “You and your bad temper.”

Kuroko pretends to be unperturbed, and then takes a seat on the bed. “Alright, let’s say that I really punched you, and I would like to apologize for that. However, I drank too much last night, who knew what you were going to do.”

“What else could I do?” Akashi smirks, “Did you actually think I was going to do you?”

“Can you be a little more polite? Do you even have any good words in your mouth?”

“It depends on whom I talk to. I was sleeping really well last night, and that group of insane friends of yours wildly knocked on my door, running away after they threw you in. And you want me to talk politely, after what has happened?”

“How was I supposed to know that they’ve caused you trouble last night when I wasn’t even in my clear state of mind? Besides,” Kuroko crosses his hands, looking up at Akashi with a small smile, “The reason why I was sent to you here, wasn’t it because of those rumors during high school? Both you and I know that they were also really drunk last night.”

Akashi sees Kuroko stop making a fuss with himself; his relaxed expression has somewhat eased the tension. However, upon hearing him refer to the absurd rumors floating around during their high school days, Akashi suddenly doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry, a bit dumbfounded, as he always found the rumors were both funny and extremely embarrassing.

Akashi shakes his head lightly, averting his gaze away from Kuroko. He’s about to dress to quickly leave, just in time as the doorbell rings softly.

Thinking that it’s probably his friends picking him up, Akashi doesn’t think too much of it. He opens the door, half-naked.

Outside the room, there’s a bunch of people waiting, gathering around. Once the door opens, they hurriedly crowd in, forcing each other to step aside, to look inside the room, and feel satisfied to find Kuroko sitting by the bed, wearing only a bathrobe.

It’s unclear who’s started issuing a loud whistle, but it surely has triggered them to begin the gossip talk. Realizing about this, Akashi snaps, “Why are you making a scene! Quit behaving foolishly,”

One of the taller ones, as though he’s not afraid of the upcoming death, steps forward with a suggestive smile, “Hey, hey, Akashi! Will you be generous enough and tell us, between you and Tetsu, who tops who?”

Akashi stares at him blankly, and then, shifts his gaze to a pile of people staring at him with hopeful expressions, clearly looking forward to his answer, but he doesn’t immediately refute.

Then, he hears Mibuchi shouting, “Don’t talk nonsense! Don’t you see the swelling on our Sei- _chan’_ s lip?! Of course, Sei- _chan_ topped Kuroko- _kun_ last night!”

Their teasing laughters suddenly stop. Kuroko slowly leans against the doorframe, raising his chin slightly, “Will you guys stop now? Aren’t you invading the privacy of others?”

Unfortunately, instead of listening to Kuroko, they start teasing them again.

Kuroko lets out a sigh. He’s never been accustomed to their teasings, be it during their high school days, or now. Without looking at Akashi, he turns around, pulling Akashi’s hand with him that Akashi has to take a step back. The door closes with a loud “bang.”

It’s even louder than what he did to the sliding glass door before.

Seeing Kuroko’s smooth movements, Akashi can’t help but want to laugh. However, before he can even open his mouth, Kuroko’s cold voice has echoed in his ears: “Let’s call it quits. From today onwards, you control your friends properly; I’m going to control mine as well.”

Kuroko turns his back to him and changes into his clothes. After getting dressed properly, he adds, “However, I still have to thank you for not kicking me out last night... This is my phone number. Later, if you have time, let me personally treat you to a meal.”

Akashi curls the corner of his mouth, looking down to see a series of numbers written neatly on a slip of paper lying on Kuroko’s palm. He thinks for a moment, before he reaches out to take it.

After Kuroko walks out, Akashi grudgingly tears the small note in his hands, and drops it into the dustbin carelessly.

 

 

Walking on the non-skid carpet of the hotel hallway, Kuroko feels somewhat a bit vexed; queasy. This was the first time he met face-to-face with Akashi, even though both of them frequently appeared together in other people’s conversations two years ago, as well as being the ones to be talked about the most; being the targets of those who found pleasure in following one’s convictions.

But before that, he and Akashi _seriously_ hadn’t even had a real talk with each other, not even a single word.

Kuroko doesn’t even know how long their “sex scandal” will be spreading out, considering that people seem to always bring it up every now and then. The funniest thing is, before yesterday’s occurrence, the two of them obviously always minded their own businesses, and didn’t even seem to want to stumble into one another.

He vaguely remembers that it’d started in his second year of high school.

On a fine Wednesday, during the break time, Aomine, who was sitting next to him, had mysteriously pulled out his phone from under the school desk. Its bright screen shows the most viewed post on the school’s web forum recently — **【** **gossip: a male x male couple has secretly bloomed in our school! come here and see if I’m wrong!** **】**

The school’s web forum had a feature for the students to chat with one another, namely _“Idle Gossip”,_ which usually would be filled with low-value small talks every single day. Compared to the _“Publicity Section”_ which only had a dozen new posts show up each week, in the _“Idle Gossip”,_ more than twenty or thirty new posts would come up each day, which were consisted of confessions, quarrels, catfights, graduations, or exams—from anonymous roastings to the bad mouthings about the teachers. In short, the feature had always become the students’ favorite.

Kuroko bent down slightly to take a look at it, feeling somewhat fishy.

The main protagonist KT, why did it seem to describe himself?

The class, the grades, the extracurricular club—even the area where he lived, everything seemed to fit one into the other.

He suddenly looked up to ask Aomine, “Is it about me?”

“Yep!”

Seeing Aomine nod, Kuroko cautiously lowered his head again to read the content of the post.

> **【** **#1** **┃** **ID: red-blue-straps (Original Poster)** **】**
> 
> _(Open Discussion)_
> 
> **» gossip: a male x male couple has secretly bloomed in our school! come here and see if I’m wrong!**
> 
> **…**
> 
> _Alright, since I’m done with the introduction of our first main protagonist KT, and I think everyone has already guessed who it is, I’ll move to our second main protagonist, AS! Who doesn’t know this person? He’s really famous in our school, and I got a really deep impression on him after I saw him leading this year’s arts festival! He’s so damn handsome, don’t you think so!? ( ~~Come on, you can’t deny it!)~~ It’s really easy to guess who he is, right?_
> 
> _Now, let’s us continue talking about KT and AS._
> 
> _Do you remember the old post about a well-respected student who’s supposedly swinging the other way? It was posted here a few months ago, and has caused an uproar. I can say for sure, that post was talking about AS! In addition, AS had a boyfriend back in junior high, I heard his friend say so! They seemingly broke up because of the different choices of high schools._
> 
> _But! The main point is! I discovered a secret!_
> 
> _The current boyfriend of AS is!_
> 
> _K! T!_  

Kuroko eventually sat upright again. He really couldn’t go even further than that. With a frown, he asks, “Who’s AS?”

“You’re asking me?” Aomine grinned mischievously, “Who AS is, aren’t you the one who knows about him the best? I dare not talk drivel,”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Aomine- _kun_! Who’s AS?”

There was a bit of pressure in Kuroko’s voice, and he raised his voice loud enough that everyone in the class seemed to have heard what he said. They all had this “I understand, I understand,” expression on their faces; they presumably had read the post about him and this ‘AS’, too.

No wonder, in the past few days, he always felt like he was under the excessive, unwanted attention.

Kuroko bit his lower lip, taking out a text book from his bag, and pretended that he didn’t know anything.

However, his heart had inevitably brooded over it.

_— This AS, who is it really?_

After a few days, he could finally put the pieces together. This so-called AS was none other than Akashi Seijuurou, from Class 2-1, who was widely known for his good performances and handsome looks. However, Kuroko had only recognized Akashi’s name, since they had never said a word to each other before. About him being Akashi’s boyfriend, it was such a fantasy story that wouldn’t happen in real life. What boyfriend, Kuroko didn’t even seem to remember when he ever crossed paths with Akashi.

Despite that, being driven by curiosity, Kuroko had carefully started reading the post from the top to the bottom in one go. The post itself brought up a lot of “reasonable” and “clear” evidences that he was, _indeed,_ in a relationship with Akashi. And, it surprised Kuroko quite a bit about the fact that the evidences actually made sense.

A picture was attached on the post. It was seemingly taken during the closing ceremony of the arts festival. Kuroko and Akashi, separated by a few other students, looking at each other, smiling, despite their distance.

Really, Kuroko didn’t even remember what he was looking at when the camera captured that exact moment. Perhaps, the two of really _did_ make an eye contact. However, who would imagine that some people would actually snap a picture of it?

And it wasn’t just that picture.

The wildest evidence was about last year’s summer vacation.

In his social media account, Kuroko had posted a picture of him posing at a famous tourist attraction in Okinawa, and the same night, Akashi also posted something in his account. At that time, Kuroko’s caption was 【 ** _Do they have a night market around here?_** 】, and then, at night, Akashi shared a picture of the night sky with a caption 【 ** _Found a night market near the hotel. Eat, eat, eat._** 】

> **ID: red-blue-straps (Original Poster)** ’s comment on it: _Hey, yo! Are they going on a honeymoon?_

Recently, when Akashi went to the famous horror city, he uploaded a short video with a caption 【 ** _It’s going to be very fun._** 】, and a week after, Kuroko also took a picture there, 【 ** _It’s not very fun, is it?_** 】

> **ID: red-blue-straps (Original Poster)** ’s comment on it: _You guys take a look at this space-separated interaction!_

More and more coincidences kept happening, and the most bizarre one was, the day before the post about them being in a relationship was published, Akashi had found an abandoned puppy in the schoolyard. At that time, a lot of people witnessed him carrying the puppy in his arms with a gloomy expression. A girl even captured it and sent the picture in the forum, causing a fuss. Since there was no place to keep it in the school, Akashi had brought it to the pet shop next to the school for the puppy to get cleaned up and taken care of for the time being. Akashi himself wasn’t that good in keeping pets, so he could only wish that someone would see the pure appearance of the puppy and bring it home with them. After that, the puppy was really taken back home, and it was now sleeping peacefully in Kuroko’s house. It was later named Nigou.

> **ID: red-blue-straps (Original Poster)** ’s comment on it: _Is the puppy purposely being given to the boyfriend as a gift?!_

After reading the whole post, Kuroko practically dare not believe it.

_How can there be such amazing, yet frightening coincidences in this world!?_

Had he not been the person involved, he would’ve believed it, too! There were too many coincidences that, indeed, could lead everyone to a conclusion that they’re really together, that it didn’t seem to be a coincidence anymore.

From then on, Kuroko began to hide from Akashi, avoiding the places where they were likely to meet each other, going to the canteen less often in order not to bump into Akashi, and no longer staying in the gym for too long, for fear of meeting Akashi, who was always staying behind for his student union matters.

He did it to stop others’ suspicions.

Kuroko didn’t expect that it would get to the point that it seemed to have become a war of attrition.

It took a great amount of effort, as well as time, to divert the public opinions from himself; it was very difficult to keep himself away from all those rumors. Even though the limelight finally eschewed, and the top post had also been withdrawn, someone would always get this “sex scandal” out to chat about from time to time, even until their graduation.

 

After the graduation, Kuroko got trapped in the illusion of “ _This is finally over._ ” when in fact, in less than a month, he’s getting slapped back again by that “sex scandal.”

He remembers the day before, his friends dragged him to the bar to “getting familiar with the other freshmen.” There were a lot of people in the bar, the freshmen were gathering around, and to be frank, the moment Kuroko caught the sight of Akashi, he couldn’t help but take a few more glances at him.

Perhaps, because he heard the rumors about them, about _him,_ a lot, his heart always cared about Akashi more than others.

 

Among his friends, Aomine is the only one who’s fully aware of Kuroko’s single status. However, he’s also the one who loves to put Kuroko and Akashi together, and always creates a disturbance whenever Kuroko and Akashi happen to be in the same room, or accidentally meet each other.

At his antics, Kuroko can only roll his eyes. He doesn’t really care about Aomine’s constant teasing about wanting to “get Tetsu and Akashi together.”

Except this time, Kuroko really feels that it was too much.

“Do you think it’s really funny? Throwing me into his room? Really, Aomine- _kun?”_

Aomine grins, offering him a can of Red Bull. “Everyone was joking around, Tetsu. Spare me this time. Besides, you were obviously the one shouting and yelling about wanting to get back at him. You even said you want to top Akashi!”

Kuroko stares at him in surprise, “M-Me? I want to get back at him?” … _and also, topping him!?_

“That’s right! And then, you also said that Akashi must be the one writing that post, and that he’s been lusting after you for a long time, which was why he made up such a story. You said it yourself, if you don’t believe me, go ask them!”

His other friends tear their gazes away from their laptop screens and pause their games for a moment, looking up at him with a nod.

Kuroko is left dumbfounded.

He _did_ think that the post was probably made by Akashi. After all, the coincidences were all just… too coincidental.

However, Kuroko thought that it’s a bit narcissistic of him, so he has never discussed about it with others. And, he never thought he’d yell it out last night, just because the alcohol has gone to his head.

Kuroko lets out an awkward cough, suddenly looks embarrassed, “He didn’t hear it, right?”

Aomine’s smile is kind of devious, “He didn’t hear it my ass! You talked so loudly, and his face almost turned green, you know?”

No wonder Akashi didn’t give him a good face this morning.

_This is too awkward. Too embarrassing._

Akashi should’ve been the one getting angry at him, not the other way around. Moreover, Akashi was kind enough not to kick him out of the door last night. But, what did he do to him in return? Punching him in the face, doubting him, thinking he’d do something to him.

The more Kuroko thinks about it, the more he regrets it.

He won’t be surprised if Akashi won’t want to see him again after this. Even he himself is too ashamed to bring himself to appear in front of Akashi.

After what’s happened.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I haven’t written anything for months so //shrugs. Thank you for reading!
> 
>  
> 
> Note: Akashi didn’t join the basketball time during high school.


End file.
